by Perrin Briar
Jordan took hold of the wheel too.
“Ready?” Joel asked. “On three. One, two…”
They put their full weight behind turning it, their faces turning red with exertion. They expelled painful grunts of air. The wheel cried out as if in pain, then only squeaked as it haltingly gave way. Water spilled from the doorframe in wide channels, running down Jordan’s leg. They stopped.
“One more turn should do it,” Joel said, out of breath. “When this door gives, it’s going to open pretty fast. We’ll need to move quick. Are you ready?”
Jordan nodded. They braced the wheel again. They barely twisted two inches before something inside the door snapped with a sharp crack. The door flew open, tossing Joel and Jordan aside like ragdolls. The water spilled over them, rushing forth from the door like a mighty river had burst its banks. Lumps like clotted cream spilled through, splaying out in all directions, eviscerated on the sharp steel stairs, their heads scalped, the limbs hooked about the stairs torn from their sockets, thick blood oozing and spreading out over the surface.
The corridor was packed with bodies like monstrous rotting lily pads. The water level was up to Jordan’s chest now. At the deepest area at the stairs he wouldn’t even be able to keep his feet on the floor.
The room shuddered and a sound like a giant angry monster filled their ears. A light bulb fell from its holder, splashing in the water. Dust sprinkled the surface.
“What was that?” Jordan said.
“I don’t know,” Joel said, “but it doesn’t sound good.”
They waited a moment, but the event did not repeat itself. A body in a blue boiler suit floated between them. Her long blonde hair spread out around her head like a halo. Jordan put a hand out to touch her.
“Don’t go near it,” Joel said, causing Jordan to start. “Stand back.”
Joel approached the body and brought his knife down on the back of its head. The flesh and bone gave easily, like a rotten apple. The knife sunk into the skull, the cross guard thumping the bone. Joel turned the body over. Her skin was white, bloated and waterlogged, the face pale as trodden snow. The eyes were closed. She had perhaps been in her mid-twenties.
“She looks like a regular person,” Jordan said.
“Don’t let that fool you. She’s a monster. They all are.” He nodded to the other bodies, floating like trash. “Disable the others.”
Jordan looked at the unmoving bodies. “They’re dead.”
“We’ve made that mistake before,” Joel said, wading over to a body wearing a Tottenham Hot Spurs shirt. “We didn’t check them, assuming they were dead. They came up behind us and…” He slammed his knife into the back of the football fan’s head. “Almost got us. Don’t let their appearance fool you.”
Jordan waded over to the body of a man lying face down in the dark water. He wore a red rain jacket and blue jeans. His skin was pallid and bloated, the hair on the back of his head was so fine and thin his lumpy scalp could be made out beneath it. Jordan raised his chair leg in both hands above his head. He looked over at Joel who plunged his knife into the eye of a young girl no older than eleven. Jordan turned back to the man in front of him and prepared to bring the weapon down… It slipped from his fingers and slapped the water behind him.
“I can’t do this,” he said. “I can’t.”
“You have to,” Joel said. He stood at Jordan’s shoulder with the discarded chair leg in his hands. “Your life, as well as ours, depends on it.” He put the leg in Jordan’s hands. “The first time is always the hardest. It’s easier not to think of them as human. Stan reckons they’ve regressed to some former animal state, to the time before we became self-aware. I’m not sure I believe that, or even if I understand it, but I do know they want to kill us. And they won’t stop unless we kill them first.”
Jordan raised the chair leg to shoulder height. Joel moved to turn the body over. Jordan wanted to protest, but the words stuck in his throat. The face had been torn, the flesh hanging by strips. His nose was a bloody ruin, bitten or else ripped off. The inner cavern of his nostrils was dark and covered in a thick slimy membrane. Blue veins coursed under his skin like thick ropes. The eyes stared up at the ceiling, mouth hanging open, the jaw skewed at an unnatural angle. The face actually made it easier for Jordan because the thing before him did not look human. Jordan brought the chair leg down.
The skull gave way easily to the club, leaving a crater where the man’s face had been. Once was enough, but Jordan raised the club and brought it down again. Water splashed and turned red. Shards of shattered cranium pinged off the walls. Soon Jordan was pounding the water where a head used to be.
Jordan’s arms burned. He could no longer lift the chair leg. Blood and a thick green pus clung to the leg’s engravings and oozed down the vine grooves like a blood gutter on a sword, spilling over his gloves. Jordan sobbed, drawing in wracking breaths that shook his whole body.
Joel put a hand on his back. “You did well.”
“It’s not that,” Jordan said. “Until now I never really believed the world had changed, at least not as you all told me. I guess I secretly believed the world was as I remember it. But now…” He stared into the dead black eyes that gaped from the crushed skull. “Now I know the world really has changed. Everyone I knew is gone. And here I am, smashing it to smithereens with the leg of a destroyed chair from a forgotten world.”
Joel said nothing, letting the moment linger. Once Jordan was ready, they moved about the corridor destroying the brain of each floater they found. The water tinged the colour of red wine with flecks of yellow pus.
And then they stepped into the engine bay.
19.
“They’ve been down there an awful long time,” Anne said, peering at Light through the binoculars.
Stan sighed. It was the fifth time she’d said it. “No longer than you were yesterday.”
“That was different.”
“How is it?”
Anne shook her head. “It just is.” She peered through the binoculars again.
“No matter how hard you try you’ll never see through the hull with those binoculars. X-ray vision doesn’t come as standard.”
Anne smiled, but the tension didn’t leave her eyes.
“They’ll be fine,” Stan said. “Don’t you think they would have made contact with us if there was a problem? The Lurchers will all be dead, and there’s nothing left to harm them.”
“It’s not the Lurchers I’m worried about.”
At that moment there was a loud screech, like a girder under too much pressure.
Anne raised the binoculars, heart pounding in her ears. She scrubbed Light left to right, looking for what could have caused that god awful noise. She felt a tap on her shoulder. She looked up into Stan’s wide white eyes, his gnarled finger pointing at Light’s stern.
“I don’t think you’re going to need those binoculars, love,” he said.
She looked up. Her blood felt like it had frozen in her veins.
The stern was sagging into the water like an old man setting himself on the sofa. The front lifted up, water dripping from the bow, poking its nose up at the sky. Anne grabbed the walkie talkie that Stan clutched tight to his chest.
“You have to get off the boat!” she shouted into the walkie talkie. “It’s sinking! Do you hear me? It’s sinking! Get out!”
Static answered her.
“Joel? Jordan? Are you there?”
Still no answer.
“If you can hear me, get out now.” Anne gave Stan the walkie talkie. “Keep trying to contact them.” She ran to the crank and pumped it as fast as she could.
Stan broke from his stupor. “Wha… What are you doing?”
Anne didn’t look up from the crank. “I’m going down there.”
“You can’t. The boat’s going to sink.”
“They’ll die down there if no one warns them. Take care of Stacey and Jessie. No matter what happens, keep them safe.” The gangplank had extended to about halfway. A
nne looked at the gap, judging it.
“What about your armour?” Stan said. “You can’t go without armour!”
“It’ll slow me down.”
“But-”
“We haven’t got time to argue.”
“But you haven’t extended the plank fully yet!”
“I’ll jump it.”
“But if you fall…”
“I won’t fall.” Anne put her foot on the plank, judged the distance one last time, took one stride and…
Tonk! The hollow thud rung out across the ocean.
Anne hit the deck. Mary stood over the unconscious Anne with the frying pan in her hands. She poked Anne’s stomach with her foot. There was no reaction.
“What did you do?” Stan said, stunned.
“Me? Why, I didn’t do anything.” She handed the pan to Stan, turned and left.
20.
The ceiling was choked with pipes. They darted this way and that, overlapping and doubling back on themselves like a magic eye picture. Levers and buttons protruded from the walls. They had been chewed and gnawed on, down to nubs. One was smeared with chunks of festering lung where an oblivious Lurcher had impaled himself on it. The water on the floor shimmered with filmy rainbows, the product of a leaky pipe. Joel tapped a dirty dial that had ‘Oil Level’ written across it. The needle pointed to ‘Empty’.
“No oil,” Joel said. “Beautiful.”
Joel ran his eye over the engine, following the mass of metal the way an expert tracker pursued wild game. He got down on his belly and pulled himself under the pistons and belts. He rolled onto his back and located the alternator after only a few moments’ inspection. He took the tools out of his pocket. Within minutes he had worked the alternator free.
“Here, take this,” he said, extending it to Jordan. He pulled himself out from under the engine and wiped his hands on the T-shirt of a Lurcher’s corpse. “Let’s get the hell out of here. This place gives me the willies.”
Jordan put the alternator into a special pocket they’d sewn onto his chest. They walked toward the door. They both performed a peculiar move, their hands moving to the side as if in an attempt to regain their balance.
“Whoa,” Joel said. “Did you feel that?”
“Yeah,” Jordan said, peering around at the room. “Felt like the floor was moving.”
Joel raised the walkie talkie to his mouth. “You guys, anything exciting happening out there? Guys?”
Static answered him. Then the static fizzed and a voice like a ghost from another time crackled. “…off the boat!” More static. “…hear me? It’s sinking!”
The word was a starting pistol. They beat a hasty retreat for the door.
Light lurched again, this time forcing them forward, smacking into the door, then it pulled back, and the water in the corridor rushed toward them as the stern was pulled deeper below the waterline. The prow pulled upward, and the water in the corridor rushed with the sound of a raging river. It hit them in the chest, forcing them back, but they clung with white knuckles to their hand holds. A Lurcher sailed past and into the engine bay. The water buffeted the doorstep, rising in a cool spray. The ferry rocked back to its former position, the water flowing back toward the stairs with a whooshing sound like the sea over pebbles at the beach. The water came to a standstill.
Joel took his hands off the doorframe with great caution, as if by letting go he was going to get sucked into the depths. “I think she’s stable.”
“But for how long?”
“Who knows. We’d best get out of here fast.”
They waded out into the water. Joel’s arm reached out, blocking Jordan. “Wait.”
Jordan looked at what had arrested Joel. The Lurcher corpses floated, clinging together, forming one large mass. Their thick black congealed blood floated on top of the water, pus and other body fluids speckling the surface like a pizza.
“Whatever you do,” Joel said, “don’t swallow any of the water.”
Jordan grimaced. “I wasn’t planning on it.”
Joel launched into the water first, performing the breast stroke with powerful thrusts. Jordan, a less experienced swimmer, walked as far as he could while keeping his feet on the floor, then doggy paddled his way across the surface, careful to keep his head above the waterline. The black bloody mess clung to his cheeks and neck. He pushed a Lurcher away with a tentative finger. He gasped a mouthful of air, holding his breath, and paddled on. Joel sailed through the water like a snake, without apparent effort.
Jordan felt himself dip lower. He could smell the blood, faeces and rotting flesh. He came to a stop, treading the water a moment, cursing himself for not having taken swimming lessons, or if he had, cursing himself for having amnesia and forgetting them. He pressed on.
Something somewhere in the ship splintered, snapping in half the way a tree sounds giving way to wind in a torrential storm. Joel was already at the stairs, pulling himself from the swamp water. It clung to him like a second skin.
The water tipped over to one side. The Lurcher bodies floated past him. The water level rose. Jordan kept a close eye on the roof as it approached with breath-taking speed. He turned his face as far from it as he dared without risking the blood caking him. He stopped rising, the water sloshing around as if deciding what to do next. Joel was shouting something, but Jordan was too preoccupied with keeping his face out of the sludge to hear. The room tipped forward, and Jordan was taken by the tide, driven at great speed toward the stairs, which loomed like the stairway to hell. He slammed into them, the sharp corners stabbing into his flesh, threatening to snap his bones.
The room twisted again. The water changed direction and Jordan was forced off the stairs. He grabbed the railing, but lost his slippery gloved grip and fell toward the Lurcher cesspool below, falling into the grinning empty skull sockets awaiting him.
Something grabbed him by the collar and lifted him bodily out of the air and dumped him on the stairs. Jordan, soaked neck to foot, panted and did not move. Joel, likewise exhausted, lay beside him.
Joel was red up to his chin like he was wearing a nineteenth century high neck collar, thick globules of God-knew-what clinging to his skin. “Remind me… to give you… swimming lessons… when we get out.”
Joel reached for something at his waist, confused when his hand came away empty.
“What is it?” Jordan asked.
“The walkie talkie. It’s gone. I must have dropped it.” He looked out at the Lurcher cesspool around them, the water red and lumpy with ejaculated body fluids.
21.
“It’ll be easy going up to the next level,” Joel said as they climbed the last few stairs to the vehicle storage room. “You wait and see.”
Jordan pushed the door open. It creaked on rusty hinges. They froze at what they saw.
The vehicles had slid to the far wall, jamming together into an impenetrable wall of metal and smashed glass. Tyre skid marks covered the area like Indian war paint, the hand brakes having long since given up their fight with gravity.
“I’m waiting,” Jordan said, “but I don’t see.”
“Where are the stairs up to the next level?” Joel said, ignoring Jordan’s sally.
“They should be behind that delivery van over there.”
“That’s great.” Joel walked toward the vehicles. “You don’t happen to be able to walk through walls by any chance?”
“Maybe.” Jordan pointed to his head. “But I might just have forgotten how to do it.”
Light rolled to the left. A Hyundai i40 broke from the other cars and slammed into the wall. A Harley Davidson followed it. Decapitated wing mirrors slid along the floor.
“We’ll never get through them without getting mashed,” Joel said.
“We don’t have to go through them,” Jordan said. He climbed onto the roof of a Mercedes.
Joel smiled. He climbed onto the boot of a Nissan Micra and then onto its sloping roof. They jumped from one vehicle roof to another, taking their tim
e to judge the distance before they made it.
Light jittered, shaking beneath their feet. Car windows trembled in their frames. Jordan and Joel froze, waiting to see what the ship would do. It stopped, and they continued to hop from roof to roof.
The room banked again, suddenly this time. Joel crouched down, gripping the roof as the car slid and smashed into a Volkswagen Beetle.
Jordan likewise crouched down, but lost his grip. His car collided with a Mini. He was thrown clear and bounced across the Mini’s roof, hitting the floor with a fleshy slap. The Mini was propelled toward him. Jordan looked over his shoulder.
The coach was three metres away. He rolled. The Mini’s wheels resisted the movement, grinding against the white floor panels. A convertible smacked into the Mini from behind, causing it to jolt forward. Jordan didn’t stop rolling. The Mini loomed large, a shadow of oblivion. Jordan came to a stop, his eyes clamped shut. There was the sharp smack of two powerful forces colliding. Jordan could smell something sharp and wondered if it was the scent of death. He opened his eyes.
Blue. That was all he could see. Both before him, and racing off into his peripheral vision. Blue. The wing panel of the Mini was pressed up almost against his nose, the smell was oil from the car’s seeping underside. It had slammed into the side of the coach just as he had rolled beneath it. Jordan breathed a sigh of relief and lifted his head, smacking it on a low-hanging pipe. “Ah!”
“Jordan!” Joel called from somewhere amongst the scrapyard. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” Jordan touched his head and checked for blood. There was none. He crawled out from under the coach.
“When I saw the Mini take after you I thought you were a goner.”
“I almost was.”
Light gave a juddering cry, like it were in its death throes, metal bending to its absolute limit.
“That does not sound good,” Joel said.
Then came a sound soft and barely audible, like a whisper on the wind. It grew to the volume of a trickling stream, then to the frantic rush of a river.
